Cyprus recorded the third highest immigration rate and the second highest emigration rate in the EU in 2017, a Eurostat report shows.

The statistical service of the EU found that in 2017, 3,956 Cypriots emigrated to other countries, while 17,350 persons moved to Cyprus.

Of the 17,350, a total of 9,315 came from EU countries and 8,035 came from outside the EU.

This means that per 1,000 inhabitants of Cyprus, 24 were immigrants.

According to Eurostat, the population of Cyprus in 2018 was 864,236. The number of Cypriots was 713,471. There were 114,536 people from other EU countries residing in Cyprus and 34,632 residents come from non-EU countries.

An additional 1,597 were listed as of “unknown” origin.

A total of 22 of the 28 EU Member States reported more immigration than emigration in 2017, but in Bulgaria, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania the number of emigrants outnumbered the number of immigrants.

Relative to the size of the resident population, Malta recorded the highest rates of immigration in 2017 (46 immigrants per 1,000 inhabitants), followed by Luxembourg (41 immigrants per 1,000 inhabitants).

A total of 4.4 million people immigrated to one of the European Union (EU) Member States during 2017, while at least 3.1 million emigrants were reported to have left an EU Member State. However, these total figures do not represent the migration flows to/from the EU as a whole, since they also include flows between different EU Member States.

There were an estimated 2.4 million immigrants to the EU-28 from non-EU countries. In addition, 1.9 million people previously residing in one EU Member State migrated to another Member State.

Among these 4.4 million immigrants during 2017, there were an estimated 2.0 million citizens of non-EU countries, 1.3 million people with citizenship of a different EU Member State from the one to which they immigrated, around 1.0 million people who migrated to an EU Member State of which they had the citizenship, and some 11,000 stateless people.

For more statistics on international migration flows, acquisition of citizenship and the number of national / non-national citizens in the population, take a look at the Statistics Explained article on migration and migrant population statistics.